Poorman’s 15 Minutes of Fame: DeWayne Jessie (Otis Day and The Knights)
“My first film was Halls of Anger (1970), and it was about a racial high school issue. You know, they bus white kids to a black school and stuff like that.”
Air date: 06/27/2025
Tune in as Poorman interviews character actor and singer, DeWayne Jessie (a.k.a. Otis Day) who played Otis Day, frontman of the band Otis Day and The Knights, in the comedy movie, National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978).
In the 1980s, Jessie purchased the rights to the band's name from Universal Studios and formed a real-life version of the band with some of his family members, touring the country with wild success for years afterward, with Jessie maintaining his role as lead singer Otis Day.
They recorded an album, produced by George Clinton, that came out in 1989 titled Shout which included updated versions of "Shout" and "Shama Lama Ding Dong".
DeWayne Jessie's brother was Obediah "Young" Jessie of The Flairs and The Coasters.
wikipedia.org/wiki/DeWayne_Jessie
wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_Day_and_the_Knights
imdb.com/DeWayneJessie
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